


The Devil Inside

by junko



Series: 'Tails' of Zabimaru [15]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 14:56:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Kyouraku's brother's insults, Renji and the captain find themself at a local inn.  Kyouraku confesses some of his checkered past and Renji learns something very interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil Inside

It was late when Renji and Captain Kyōraku arrived at the inn. They had to pound on the door until a sleepy attendant with hair sticking up in every direction finally opened up and ushered them in. Renji got the sense that if the captain had been anyone but a Kyōraku, they’d have been told to sling their hooks. As it was, the attendant was irritable with a thin veneer of hospitality. The tea she offered was lukewarm and half thrown at them, but she scurried off to prepare two rooms with several bows.

Renji leaned next to the cold hearth in the entrance hall, frowning at the reflection of his tattoos in the tea. A _kagama_. He still couldn’t believe Kyōraku’s brother thought he was some cheap whore trying to pass as an Academy student. That had to be a first. Yakuza soldier, sure, but a prostitute? He must be sexier than he imagined.

Or Kyōraku’s ‘type’ was really kind of scary.

Kyōraku sat on a za-button cushion near a low table and seemed to be perusing a pamphlet explaining the ryokan’s services and menu. Kyōraku had been unusually quiet on the short walk back down the road from his brother’s estate, and he clearly brooded over the same thing. Without looking up, he said in a low voice, “I must apologize again for my brother, Mr. Renji. He cast many aspersions tonight, but rest assured they were all aimed squarely at me.”

Renji nodded in acknowledgement. After the initial reaction to the insult, Renji had realized the brother’s rude comments really said a whole hell of a lot more about Captain Kyōraku’s reputation than it did his own. 

“You see, I had what you might call as misspent youth,” the captain continued, as though to himself. “I was a bit of a thrill-seeker and kept very rough company. In fact, part of what prompted my parents insisting on Academy for me was their continuous need to bail me out of various jails. I believe the straw broke when I spent several months traveling with a rather wild gang through Zaraki.”

Renji raised his eyebrows slightly and suppressed a choking cough. _‘Rather wild’_? You had to be  insane to travel through Zaraki for fun. Zaraki was one place Renji feared to tread, as it was a never-ending wilderness of carnage and constant bloodshed. “I’m thinking your parents made the right decision there, Taicho.”

“Oh, yes, there’s no doubt about that. It was a self-destructive time in my life. An extremely troubled period before I understood the nature of my demons,” Kyōraku absently patted his zanpaktō. After a moment and a light sigh, he added, “Katsumi has always been jealous.”

“Jealous you nearly killed yourself in the wilderness?” Renji blurted before he could stop himself.

The captain merely let out one of his belly laughs. “Yes, see, you understand how serious things were. Katsumi, I’m afraid, has led a sheltered life. Not by choice, mind you, and that’s also part of the problem. We both wanted to rebel against expectations, against the restrictions of our family name, our birthright. I was the only one really allowed any kind of escape, however brief.”

Renji couldn’t say he understood the ennui of the extremely rich, but it made a kind of sense. One brother gets to have fun hanging with the criminal element, partying all night long, while the other is stuck reciting poetry or learning calligraphy or whatever boring things nobles did with their time. Even Renji could see how that might lead to some resentment.

Huh. That thought suddenly made him wonder. Did Rukia ever resent having restrictions put on her lifestyle or choices? It had never occurred to Renji that there might be downsides to being adopted into a family like the Kuchikis. 

If he ever got a chance, he’d have to ask her about that.

However, all of Kyōraku’s confessions about his sordid past might explain the captain’s intimate knowledge of yakuza tattoos.

“Regardless,” the captain said with another deep, weary sigh, “At that time in my life, I made some poor choices, particularly of, shall we say, companions, some of them… professionally-trained, if you understand.”

So the captain _had_ paid for sex. Well, no surprise. That much had seemed obvious from the brother’s insinuations. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, sir. It’s all good. I mean, what are we talking about here? A thousand years ago? Two?”

“I suppose it was, at that.” Kyōraku said with a little nod.

Kyōraku’s shoulders seemed to relax at that, and he smiled a bit more easily as he continued to flip through the pamphlet. Meanwhile, there was another subject that was hanging between them that Renji needed to broach. Renji shifted uncomfortably on stone tiles of the fireplace. “There is one other thing I need to ask you, though, sir.”

“Anything,” Kyōraku said genially, though he lifted his hat to peer curiously at Renji.

“I have to ask you to stop buying me things. Like this,” Renji raised a hand to indicate the inn. “I told you I have plenty experience sleeping in ditches. I don’t need a night at a guest house added to the tally of what I owe you.”

“Owe? There is no register, no tally. You owe me nothing, dear boy,” Kyōraku said, sounding hurt. But then he mustered up a laugh, “And I explained already, didn’t I? You have to start thinking like an officer. You can’t be sleeping in the rough in your Academy uniform. That’s not the behavior expected of a gentleman.” 

“And I listened to your argument, which why I’m here, if under protest,” Renji said. “Thing is, I do owe you, sir. I owe you for all the junk you bought me today. The internship. My scholarship. One meal and about a half-dozen beers.”

“You kept track of the number of beers?”

Renji nodded. He could tell Kyōraku the exact number and price of each, if asked. He couldn’t help but keep a running total of everything. Inuzuri economics were based almost entirely on barter. Renji had learned to let go a little of the idea of tit-for-tat during the internship, but giving for free something he enjoyed doing or was weirdly good at, like paperwork, was somehow different. A toothbrush? Underwear? Beer and food? These were real things with real value.

“It’s driving me a little insane that I have nothing to offer for repayment,” Renji admitted. “I almost wish you did want a rent boy.”

Of course that’s when the attendant came back to let them know their rooms were ready. She blinked at the two of them for a moment, but then asked without any trace of judgment, “Unless the gentlemen would prefer a single room?”

Renji looked at Kyōraku, but the captain was shaking his head with a little tired chuckle, “That’s quite alright,” he told the attendant. “Believe me, two rooms are best.”

#

Their rooms were adjacent, so after the attendant explained all the various amenities and breakfast hours, Renji hung outside the door a moment. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, sir,” Renji said with a bow. “My timing couldn’t have been worse.”

“No, Mr. Renji, I would call that impeccable! Perhaps if soldiering doesn’t work out, you should consider a career in comedy,” Kyōraku laughed. Then he put a hand on Renji’s shoulder, “Please don’t worry on my account, son. And, please, try to put aside this idea you owe me anything. What we need to think about next is how to salvage your vacation. Luckily, I’m never without sake and the river flows just as freely beyond my brother’s estate. I was hoping to enjoy the luxuries of a well-stocked kitchen and solicitous serving girls, but we can fend for ourselves, can’t we, Mr. Renji?”

Somehow Kyōraku’s positive attitude and enthusiasm had Renji nodding, “Of course, sir.”

“Excellent. We’ll start our adventure after breakfast.”

#

Renji arrived first to the common dining room. He felt conspicuous in the robe that Kyōraku bought him, but all the guests were lounging in either their own sleepwear or a yukata, a light kimono, provided by the ryokan. 

A server showed him to a table near the back of the room and introduced him to the others already seated there. It seemed he’d be sharing breakfast with two traveling merchants and a pilgrim headed to a local shrine. The pilgrim was a grizzled older man with fluffy white eyebrows like hairy caterpillars and he seemed instantly fascinated that Renji was an Academy student, “Shinōreijutsuin! Ah, such a dream. I applied, you know, in my youth, but, alas, I had no aptitude.”

“The entrance exams are hard, sir,” Renji said in acknowledgement. When tea arrived, Renji took it upon himself to serve the others. He looked around the table to try to guess rank order. One of the merchants met his eye and gave him a nod, so he started there first. “I wasn’t sure I passed at first.”

A collective intake of breath had Renji looking around for the source of excitement. Apparently, captain Kyōraku’s arrival was causing a bit of a stir among the guests. The pilgrim gripped Renji’s arm and leaned in as though conspiratorially, “A captain! Goodness me! Look at his zanpaktō. He carries double blades!”

“That’s not just any old captain, that’s the Kyōraku spare,” said one of the merchants somewhat cattily. She had silver-blond hair pulled tightly away from her face and wrapped in a coiled spiral of braids that wound all the way to the tip of her head almost like a pointed hat.

“Spare?” asked the highest ranking merchant, confused. 

“Yes,” the woman with the coiled hair explained, “As in ‘heir and a spare;’ he’s the second son.”

Kyōraku seemed to be scanning the room. Spotting Renji he waved and started over to their table. The server caught his sleeve, “No, sir. Please, you need to sit at the table of honor, near the garden.”

Kyōraku laughed and boomed, “Any table is honored by friends! Make room, Mr. Renji.”

Renji scooched aside dutifully, just as Kyōraku plopped down cross-legged beside him, at the very foot of the furthest back table. Everyone looked utterly scandalized. The server covered her eyes as if Kyōraku’s seating choice was the crime of the century and she couldn’t bear to watch the carnage. The whole thing was made more surreal by the fact that, unlike anyone else in the room, Kyōraku was fully dressed.

“Ironically,” Kyōraku said to Renji, apparently understanding Renji’s hard stare. “After all my admonishment to you last night, I was the one who fell asleep in his uniform. I think rolling up against Katen Kyōkotsu may have permanently damaged my kidney.”

Renji nodded, but he thought Kyōraku must mean his liver, given the smell on his breath. 

“Tea, sir?” Renji offered since he was still holding the pot.

Having apparently gotten over her initial shock, the server came over with a place setting for the captain. The captain took the tea bowl from her and held it out to Renji, who filled it. Meanwhile, the server hesitated nervously at Kyōraku’s elbow, “Are you sure we can’t provide more appropriate seating, Kyōraku-tono?” she asked timidly. “This table is quite full. Perhaps I could move both you and your apprentice…?”

 _Apprentice_? That was the best assumption anyone had made so far, Renji thought.

“We’re fine here,” Kyōraku assured her. “Pomp and circumstance make me nervous. I prefer good company to ‘appropriate,’ at any rate. If you insist on making fuss, however, I would dearly love someone to run up the hill and fetch a jug or two of sake from the estate’s cellar. Tell my no-good brother that he’d better cough up a fine vintage, too, or I’ll stage a sit-in protest on his doorstep.”

“Uh…” the server looked horrified, but bowed and said, “Yes, right away, sir.”

Renji finished pouring the tea for everyone and filled his own bowl. While Kyōraku introduced himself around and made happy small talk, Renji watched the captain out of the corner of his eye. 

He’d always assumed Kyōraku’s drinking habits were some kind of act. Renji had no idea why anyone would _want_ the reputation the captain seemed to cultivate inside the Seireitei, but he’d never put that much stock in all the rumors surrounding Kyōraku. 

Yet, it was blatantly obvious Kyōraku had drunk himself to sleep last night.

Maybe those thousand-some year old demons of his weren’t entirely conquered.

#

After everyone finished breakfast, Kyōraku mended some ‘political’ fences by introducing himself and chatting to all the tables in the dining room. Renji held back and let the captain do his thing. He sat at their far table and nursed a third cup of tea.

The old man had stayed at the table, too, though Renji noticed him sneaking leftover sticky buns into his pockets when he thought no one was looking. “I don’t know how you can be unhappy with such a fine master,” the pilgrim said when he noticed Renji looking at him. “So few practice the old ways anymore, you’re lucky for such a rare opportunity to learn one-on-one with a shinigami, and a captain at that.”

“Old ways?”

The old man nodded. “Yes, at one time the only way to be trained in the arts of a shinigami was to be chosen as an apprentice by a master, like your captain there. It was a fine system, though there were always drawbacks. Eventually, such singular allegiances led to disunity as protégées were more loyal to their teachers than to each other or the Soul Society.”

Renji had read something about that system in a history book, but one question had always haunted him, “How did anyone get their zanpaktō?”

The old pilgrim shrugged, “I have no idea.”

But Renji was looking at the open palm of his hand, remembering the solidness of the phantom hilt and the song of steel that had rung in his ears. 

Could it be that a zanpaktō was literally part of a person made manifest, drawn out into the world by sheer will and reistsu? But then what about all those graduates who carried asauchi? Renji himself had held one on the elite class’s foray into the human world. It had the spirit-sending powers of a zanpaktō, but no name. It wasn’t ‘his,’ anyone could use it. But, even so, Renji always thought that the asauchi handed out at graduation were like the pupa of an insect that was activated to molt into the next stage via mediation and whatnot. That’s what the textbooks would have him believe, anyway. What they handed you at graduation was your zanpaktō, you just had to wake it up, call its name…

But, what it if was a lie? Or a half-truth?

What if asauchi were more like a template, a holding pattern, or an empty mould of spiritual energy that its wielder filled the more he or she used it? What if, eventually, the ‘fake’ sword fell away, and what was always inside finally came out? 

He closed his fingers around an imaginary hilt. 

If that were true, he didn’t have to wait. He already had Zabimaru.


End file.
